


Look How Far We've Come

by scar-and-boomerang (Y_Woo)



Series: ATLA Daemons AU companion pieces [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Compliant, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Angst, Backstory, Bisexual Sokka (Avatar), Canon Backstory, Daemon Touching, Daemons, Dear god these tags are a mess, Disaster bi Sokka, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen or Pre-Slash, I'm such a Zukka trash can you tell?, M/M, Philosophy, Pre-Slash, Self-Indulgent, So much talking, Sokka is a little shit as always, Talking, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, Zuko's Scar (Avatar), consensual daemon touching tho, daemons AU, honestly this might as well be a playscript, no human romance action, obligatory scar backstory fic, philosophical, which if you read the original series is pretty much sex so make of that what you will, you know the one, zukka - Freeform, zuko scar story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 10:35:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21014375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Y_Woo/pseuds/scar-and-boomerang
Summary: "They sat side by side for a while in silence, listening the the joyed cries of the squirrelarks native to the Western Air Temples and noting how the sun had begun to inch below the tip of the distant mountains. It was a rare moment of relaxation and comfort amidst the looming threat of the comet and the raging on of the war."Sokka and Zuko have a heartfelt talk post-Boiling Rock, about souls, memories, and sexuality. In which Zuko is an awkward tutleduck and Sokka wears his heart on his sleeves - literally. Set in the Avatar-verse where all the people are born with a soul-animal companion know as a "daemon", as in the style of Lyra's universe in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. Contains NO His Dark Materials spoilers.





	Look How Far We've Come

**Author's Note:**

> Companion piece to my [Daemons AU series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1510328) because it contains a non-canon ship and is very self-indulgent and people seem to be reading it without having read the other fics already anyway so I figured I'd take it out to ease the confusion
> 
> I do not own any ATLA characters or storylines, or the concepts and world building done by Philip Pullman. All daemon character names and characterisation are my own. Title of story and quote are taken from the lyrics of 'Look How Far We've Come' by Imagine Dragons, I do not own that either.

* * *

Stand up when you hear your name,  
'Cause I think that we're the same:  
We've got the same old hands,  
We've made the same old plans.

Bail out to the yellow raft,  
It's got a hole but we can last,  
We'll watch until it fades away.

* * *

“Have you seen Hikari?” Zuko’s voice broke through the small copse of trees being him. Sokka had been sitting on the edge of a temple platform, fingers combing through Rikki, who was tucked into his lap, and legs dangling above the canyon.

Both of them looked up to see the Fire Nation prince towering over him. “Nope.” Sokka answered, unable to comprehend how someone could just_ lose _their daemon.

Sighing, Zuko took a seat next to them, only asking “Mind if I join you?” as an afterthought, and was met with no protests from boy or duck.

“Aren’t you going to look for her?” Rikki questioned, bewildered.

“Nah. It’s nothing urgent, and she always circles back before nightfall. If she were in trouble, I’d know.” Again Sokka found himself wondering how someone could sound so nonchalant about literally _not knowing where part of their soul was._ Fire Nation, he decided, was weird.

“I always thought it was a myth.” He remarked, “mandatory daemon separation in the Fire Nation and all.”

“I mean, it kind of is. It’s completely optional by law, but most people in the military do it because they didn’t want to lose out on the advantage. They train in their twenties though,” Zuko added, lips upturned into the slightest hint of a teasing smirk, “We don’t take babies and their daemons and rip them apart at birth, if that’s what they’ve been saying about us.”

Sokka shuddered at the thought.

“In the South Pole, some people with less mobile daemons like seals and reindeers had to. Or if they were water dwelling and the human wasn’t happy with a life confined to the shorelines. I count my blessings Rikki is neither. He’s only gone far enough for it to hurt once, when I was nine, and I can’t imagine ever going through that again, let alone on purpose.”

Zuko’s face blanched. “I tried it for the first time when I was ten. It was unbearable.” He offered. “I didn’t succeed then, and swore I would never try again, it was too excruciating and not at all worth it. Ironically, when it happened for real, I didn’t feel a thing.”

“Really?”

He cast his gaze down. “They say that even without training, the less emotional you feel towards your daemon, the weaker your connection becomes, and, by physical manifestation, the further they can go from you naturally. This was my uncle’s theory anyway, that the years I spent blatantly rejecting and hating Hikari for her form had caused the separation.”

“How can you do that?” Sokka winced, and demanded out loud, almost scandalised. His clutched on Rikki tightened. “How can anyone hate their daemon? That’s like… no, that literally _is_ hating your own soul, the most important part of yourself.”

“Yeah, looking back I realise how cruel that was both to her and myself, and I wish more than anything I could take back the three years and act differently. But at the time, all I wanted to do was to please my father and make him proud, and I thought I couldn’t do that without a traditional Fire Nation daemon.” The prince sighed, casting his gaze into the mist hung over the drop of cliffs in front of them. “I mean, did you never have a problem with the way _your_ daemon settled? Considering Katara and your dad…”

At this, the Water Tribe boy looked down thoughtfully at the daemon still cozied up on his lap, to find the latter tilting his neck back to peer up at him expectantly and curiously as well.

“Nah.” He decided truthfully. “I mean, Rikki himself brought it up a couple times, I suppose that means subconsciously I must have felt it? I don’t know how this whole ‘one soul, two minds thing quite works. But I’m always the one to assure him how he has his skills and Mags has his own, just like Katara has her bending and I have my boomerang. People always looked at my little sister with the magic water and fierce fox and decided she got the better half of the deal, but I know that I’m only expendable if I let myself be, so.”

Zuko nodded thoughtfully, he respected the other boy for his wisdom, but was also slightly embarrassed at seeing the maturity he’d never been able to show for his Hikari.

“Besides,” Sokka continued, “Rikki can fly. Not that well, but enough to make better use of the scrying mum taught us when we were little compared to Mags, anyways. I’m sure you do it better with Hikari though, she’s a strong flyer, and you’re separated.”

“Do what now?” Zuko stared, face blank and confused. Sokka looked up in surprise.

“You mean to say you have a bird daemon and _no one’s_ taught you scrying?” When his exclamation was met with a hesitant shake of the head, he explained, “It’s when you close your own eyes and see through your daemon’s.”

“You can do that? Is this some kind of a Water Tribe voodoo that the rest of the world didn’t know about?”

Sokka chewed on his lips thoughtfully, uncertain. He had cut off most of his mother’s lectures about the history of the art rudely during these sessions, and eagerly demanded when they could get to the action. He made a point to ask Katara what she remembered later. “It might be,” for now, he conceded to admit. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t teach you next time, when you have Hikari around.” He offered.

“You’d do that?” Zuko turned to look at Sokka for the first time in this conversation, voice soft with surprise. In his lap, Rikki snorted and earned a light slap on his head by Sokka. If the other boy was confused by this interaction, he didn’t question it.

“Yeah,” he replied when he realised the firebender was still waiting on an answer, “I mean, you were willing to train in swordbending with me, and bust my dad out of prison, it’s the least I can do.”

“It’s a date, then.” The words slipped out of Zuko’s mouth before he could think about their meaning. Suddenly blushing profusely, he stammered, “I mean! You know…”

Rikki snorted once more.

They sat side by side for a while in silence, listening the the joyed cries of the squirrelarks native to the Western Air Temples and noting how the sun had begun to inch below the tip of the distant mountains. It was a rare moment of relaxation and comfort amidst the looming threat of the comet and the raging on of the war.

“Can I ask you something?” It was Zuko’s voice that broke the almost blessed peace first, though neither boys seemed particularly bothered by this.

“Shoot.”

“Is Rikki… Is Rikki _male_?”

The duck in question let out such a perfect combination of a choked and sarcastic snort and an indignant quack that conveyed a nuanced emotion only he could master.

“It’s just that I grew up with Ty Lee, you know, the cartwheeling chi blocker?” Zuko elaborated hastily before either Sokka or Rikki could dignify his question with a response, “and her daemon is male, but his name was _Rosalija,_ so, you know. Also, he always had a high pitched, girlish voice, and settled as the most beautiful white ocicat, so people always assumed. I thought maybe Rikki was like that.”

“Well there isn’t much dimorphism present in cats, but female harlequin ducks don’t have as fabulous coats as the male ones.” Sokka assured kindly, clearly amused but not offended by the question. “So yeah, last I checked Rikki is definitely a boy.”

“Right. So does that mean you’re… you know…” Zuko trailed off, uncertain if he toed the line of appropriateness a little too closely.

“Gay?” Sokka finished helpfully at the firebender, who nodded shyly. “No. My father always said there was no correlation, and when we were at Wan Shi Tong’s library I made sure to check as well, and the scrolls there said the same.”

Zuko was confused about what this library was, but he supposed it had just been another one of the exciting adventures the Avatar and his friends got up to when they weren’t being chased down by him and his crew.

“I mean, I’m bi, I think.” Sokka declared hesitantly, almost as if he were afraid he’d regret imparting this identity to Zuko. He pressed on, however, before he could back out of the situation.

“I mean I’ve never _been_ with a guy, but it’s kind of just a hunch, like how I feel sometimes and stuff, so I’m pretty sure I am. I haven’t told the rest of them yet, though, not even my sister. I figured since there’s a whole war going on at the moment there are more pressing matters at hand than my sexuality? So yeah. That’s okay with you, right? That doesn’t make things weird or anything?”

Sokka was rambling nervously at this point, which in turn made Zuko nervous. For some godforsaken reason, he blushed at this sudden confession. _Way to make things more awkward, _the prince chided himself.

“Yeah. I mean, No! No, not at all. I’m really honoured you chose to share this with me.”

“Right.” Sokka concluded, relief lifting his shoulders.

“Right.” Zuko echoed.

The two returned to the scenery once more. Their surroundings were more dim now, an orange glaze cast over the stones on the edge of the cliff, matching the band of darkish light that peeked from beyond the rocky landscape. Zuko was just starting to wonder if he should take his leave when Sokka spoke up once again.

“So how’d you get your scar?”

This caught the other boy off guard. “What?” He asked, perhaps a little too harshly due to the shock, causing Sokka to backtrack.

“I mean, it’s OK if you don’t wanna say! I just figured since we were on a pretty good roll with all the heart to hearts and stuff.”

“No, no it’s fine.” Zuko took himself by surprise as well this time. It was a difficult story to tell, and Sokka _had_ offered him a way out. But he also felt the sharing of feelings getting to him, loosened and at ease after Sokka revealed an intimate part of him. If anyone deserved to know the truth, the Water Tribe boy had certainly proven himself a worthy candidate. He took a deep breath and let the story flow in an objective and composed manner upon attentive ears.

“I got it in an Agni Kai, a fire duel, when I was thirteen.

“I had talked my way into a war meeting by promising to behave and not draw attention to myself. I broke that promise when an official shared his plan to sacrifice an entire division of new recruits as a distraction against the Earth Kingdom army, and the idea that we could betray soldiers who loved and served our country disgusted me. I called out the official and got in trouble for it.

“My father said that the only way to settle the dispute over my honour was by challenging me to a duel. I accepted under the impression that I would be fighting the person I spoke up against, and was eager to prove the strength of my conviction. But I had misunderstood. On the day of the Agni Kai, I turned around not to face the military official, but my own father.

“Not having been able to bring myself to fight my father and Fire Lord, I kneeled before him and begged for forgiveness. But that had only aggravated him further, as proof of the weakness he always saw in me. He told me that I will learn respect, and suffering will be my teacher, and reached out, and set fire to my face.”

Sokka had remained silent throughout the monologue, whether out of respect or horror, Zuko did not know. He finished his story, and took the breath he didn’t remember holding, staring straight ahead. Still, his only audience made no noise of acknowledgement to the end of the tale.

Not quite able to bring himself to look at the boy next to him, Zuko waited, shoulders tense. _Say something_, he willed silently, when suddenly he felt warmness on his thighs where his hands rested - something soft nudged into his palm and settled down in his lap. His looked down in surprise, and almost gasped as he saw the metallic colours of _Rikki’s feathers_ between his fingers.

Instinctively, he started stroking the soft, dense plumage over his round form, but the flashback of a memory that he’d left out of the tale took him by such a ferocity he almost doubled over and choked.

_Ozai, with his finger closed around Hikari, squeezing. Squeezing Zuko’s own heart as he felt all the blood evacuated from its chambers and the pain and the nausea, oh, the nausea…_

“Is this okay?”He had to ask. Peeling his eyes open and turning to Sokka.

“I ain’t the boss of him.” The human shrugged, trying desperately to sound nonchalant, but even in the dimming evening light Zuko could tell he was blushing profusely. Still, he hadn’t seemed like he was in pain or discomfort, so Zuko didn’t push the duck off him, and instead chose to settle into a rhythm of petting his back.

“Thanks for this.” He offered, unsure of what to make of the gesture. “It reminds me of the times Hikari used to comfort me when I was upset, before she got too small to safely cuddle without the risk of crushing her.”

Sokka barked an awkward laugh. Then, his face twisting into seriousness once more, he told him, “sorry about what happened though, it suck. I always thought you got it in firebending practice or something, I wouldn’t have asked if I knew it was this upsetting.”

“It’s fine. You deserved to know after what we’ve been through together. Though in my travels I’m often surprised by how it’s not common knowledge. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.”

“Yeah. I’m sure you know this already, with you being here and all, but I’ll say it still: you were right. The army official was wrong and your father should have been proud of your kindness. What you showed that day was true honour, not the lack thereof.”

Zuko found a small smile tugging at his lips. The sensation of gratitude and resolution was overwhelming. For such a long time, he had thought those words only meant something coming from his father, and marvelled now at the true friendship he’d forged in the search of his own destiny, and how much more fulfilling that was than the empty praise of a man who has wronged him since the minute of his birth.

“Thank you, Sokka.” He said earnestly. Then, before he could overthink it, Zuko lifted the duck by his belly, and planted a soft kiss at its forehead.

Sokka’s blush, which had only just begun to fade, returned tenfold. “What on earth did you do that for?!” He yelped.

This triggered Zuko’s heart to pound and his mind to spiral into panic. _Has he misread the situation, pushed the line too far and ruined the moment? _He thought frantically, desperate to think of something to patch things up.

“I’m sorry! I… don’t know what I was thinking. That was so inappropriate, oh, Agni…” He trailed off faintly. A quack of teasing laughter came from the bird still firmly grasped in his hand.

“Don’t sweat it!” Rikki assured him loudly, somehow managing to convey a smirk entirely in his voice, “Sokka’s just jealous you kissed me first and not him.”

“_Rikki!_” Sokka hissed at his daemon, mortified. They were going to have a _serious_ talk about betraying his personal feelings like that. Spirits, what kind of a daemon _waddles_ into another person’s lap unprompted, then proceed to totally sell his own human out without batting so much of an eye?

“We… should head back.” Zuko proposed, not knowing how to handle the train-wreck of a situation, and not missing how Sokka didn’t even _try_ to deny his daemon’s claim either, “The others will be wondering why we’ve been gone a while.”

“Yeah. Good point.” Came the weak agreement.

“Uhhh… here.” Zuko held out Sokka’s daemon towards him, the latter all but snatched him from the former’s hands, set him down on the ground.

“You can walk.” Sokka told Rikki sternly, and Zuko couldn’t quite hold in his chuckle as the two humans walked side by side back through the copse of trees towards the camp, ignoring the loudly quacked moans from the daemon trailing behind them.


End file.
